Officers and Gentlemen:
Commanding the British Army
in the Napoleonic Wars
Part II

Richard Sharpe

by Stuart Reid


RICHARD SHARPE

To end on a light note it is interesting to see how the celebrated career of that fictional Rifleman, Richard Sharpe squares with actual custom and practice.

Top: Obligatory Sean Bean shot

His first commission - in the 74th Highlanders - was a death vacancy gained without purchase (Sharpe's Triumph) and as we have seen there was nothing at all unusual in his coming up from the ranks. What is more since he was neither a Sergeant Major nor a Volunteer, the Gazette entry will have referred to him as 'Richard Sharpe, Gentleman'!

As yet we know nothing about how he came to be a Lieutenant in the 95th Rifles, (Sharpe's Rifles) though he would not have appointed a Quartermaster. At any rate his promotion to Captain came during the Talavera campaign of 1809. The death of Captain Lennox produced a death vacancy in the South Essex and as it is clear that none of the subalterns had the necessary qualifying time, there is nothing exceptional in Wellington's decision to transfer Sharpe in from the 95th (Sharpe's Eagle).

So far so good but early in 1812 our hero has a problem when he discovers that not only has the promotion not been ratified, but worse still a young gent named Ryder has purchased the long dead Lennox's commission.

Officer: 95th Rifles

The plot of Sharpe's Company revolves around this setback, but even allowing for the supposed malign influence of Sir Henry Simmerson, it simply does not stand up. In the first place the time period between the promotion and disappointment is far too great [17] to be credible, but rather more important is the simple fact that dead officers commissions could not be sold. [18] Leaving this trivial point aside however there is another important aspect to consider.

In 1809 he became a Captain in the South Essex. If the appointment to command the Light Company had been only a temporary one of no more than six months he could have remained in the 95th, but as he was still serving with the South Essex some thirty months later and once again succeeded to a death vacancy in the regiment we must conclude that he was indeed a South Essex officer and that his continued wearing of a shabby green jacket was a mere affectation.

Sharpe's next promotion to Major is unambiguously by brevet (Sharpe's Enemy), however it is clear at he outset of the next book (Sharpe's Honour) that presumably as a result of Thomas Leroy's promotion to Lieutenant Colonel, he has in the meantime succeeded by seniority to a regimental vacancy. As the junior Major in the regiment he would then automatically be posted to the 2nd Battalion which provides very convenient justification for his doing just that in Sharpe's Regiment.

Sergeant: 95th Rifles

The fact of his now being a 2nd Battalion officer also explains why he was placed on Half Pay in 1814, but his complaint in Sharpe's Waterloo that he was only receiving a Lieutenant's Half Fay is pure humbug. He would actually have 'retired' with the regimental rank of Major in the South Essex and was entitled to Half Fay as such. [19]

FOOTNOTES

[6] Given the opportunities which existed for promotion without purchase it has to be feared that in all too many cases it was actually lack of ability rather than a shortage of cash which blighted their careers.
[7] See N.A.M. Rodger The Wooden World for a superb (and very readable) study of the Georgian Navy.
[8] Graves, Donald (ed) Merry Hearts make Light Days. p52-53. These ascerbic remarks were prompted by his arrival in a mixed mess at the Newport Depot on the Isle of Wight. As the officers included those of various foreign and penal corps, (and Etc officers as well) it is hardly surprising that some of them failed to live up to his elevated social expectations.
[9] Razzell: Social origins of officers in the Indian and British home army: 1758- 1962. British Journal of Sociology 14(1963). QUOTED IN Bruce, Anthony The Purchase System in the British Army 1660-1871 (Roy.Hist.Soc.1980) p67
[10] Ibid. p68-9
[11] Fletcher, Ian (ed.) In the Service of the King: The letters of William Thornton Keep at home, Walcheren, and in the Peninsula, 1808-1814. (Spellmount 1997) p80-1.
[12] The 34th Foot for example were famously known as 'The Cumberland Gentlemen' while John le Couteur of the 104th smugly recorded in his diary for the 3 1 st October 1814 that 'Sir James (Kempt) was pleased to say that He had never seen a mess so like the establishment of a private family of distinction.'
[13] Glover, Michael Wellington's Army in the Peninsula 1808-1814 (David & Charles 1977) p76-77
[14] Bulloch, J.M. A General Survey of Territorial Soldiering in North East Scotland (Muster Roll 25th June to 24th December 1794)p236-252
[15] Rodger op.cit.
[16] A typical example (W031/40) came from Lieutenant James O'Neil of the 94th, writing on the 16th December 1795: "Memorialist has had the honour to serve 19 years a Subaltem and purchased his first Commission and is now the oldest Lieutenant in the Service. That your Memorialist is not able to purchase a promotion having a Fami1y of 5 Children, two of them Sons able to Serve. One of whom, James ONeil, he has fitted out at an inconvenient Expense. And he is gone a Volunteer with the present Expedition to the West Indies. Your Memorialist could not afford to fit out his second son Arthur as a Volunteer on an uncertainty, And has some hopes that Sir Ralph Abercrombie may Notice his son James on service. Your Memorialist as an old officer with a heavy family and no mode of providing for them humbly prays your Royal Highness will please to recommend his two sons to His Majesty for Ensigns Commissions, or please to recommend himself for a Company on any service." The appeal was partly successful in that both sons were appointed Ensigns in 4/60th as of 16th December, but although O'Neil himself went to the 22nd Foot in consequence of the reduction of the 94th, he does not appear in the 1797 Army List.
[17] Rather disappointingly the scene in which a dusty clerk at Horse Guards pulls out Sharpe's personal file is also wrong. Unfortunately no such files exist for Napoleonic era officers.
[18] Permission was very occasionally granted for the sale of dead officers' commissions, but only in order to provide for a widow or orphan children. Lennox left neither.
[19] Not only that, but he would also have been entitled to a temporary pension of one year's pay as a Captain for his wound at Salamanca.

Officer pictures taken from 'Les Uniformes des Guerres Napoleoniennes' Editions Quatuor 1998.

Officers and Gentlemen Part II: Commanding the British Army in the Napoleonic Wars

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